The new Jim Kenney is starting to look a lot like the old Jim Kenney

Jan. 10, 2020

For a too-brief moment, information technology was an exhilarant notion. Maybe Mayor Jim Kenney, freed from crass political adding in a 2d term, would be bolder, more of a leader than a finger-to-the-wind political caricature. Liberated, he'd give up his dour, shoulder-shrugging ways, and instead paint an inspiring vision and govern with an centre toward confronting our deeply-ingrained challenges—the interests of the permanent establishment be damned.

Afterward all, in that location was his hiring of the impressive Danielle Outlaw as law commissioner, an outsider, despite the preferences of the police force union and many of those within a department desperately in need of reform. Then at that place was the proclamation in his inaugural address for—gasp!—citywide street sweeping, which would end Filthadelphia's dubious distinction equally the just big city in America without such a program, owing largely to Southward Philadelphians' disinclination to move their cars. Peradventure Second-Term Jimmy was no longer agape to tell a neighborhood that, for the health of their neighbors, they'd take to occasionally requite up a expert parking spot. "If you don't want to motility your automobile—tough," he told the press subsequently his speech.

A good barometer of political courage, afterward all, is whether an elected official is willing to tell supporters what they don't desire to hear. That wasn't Outset-Term Jimmy'south contour, but maybe that would change now?

Well, a guy tin dream. The showtime week of the new yr has, in at least three telling examples, refuted the naive notion that the pocket-size-ball game planning and Trump-like spin from City Hall these last four years might be in jeopardy. We've met the new dominate, and he seems an awful lot similar the onetime boss. Let'south walk through them:

The Pocket Vetos

On the concluding day of the year, Kenney failed to sign, and thus allowed to elapse, six bills passed by City Quango. Two of them would take addressed the very issue Kenney has paid stirring lip service to: Our worst-in-the-nation poverty rate.

One would accept raised the amount of property value that is untaxed from $45,000 to $50,000 for eligible homeowners in a city that—nether Kenney—has been addicted to mysterious and unjust property tax hikes. The total cost of increasing the exemption? $10 to $fifteen million annually.

More egregious was Kenney'due south pocket veto of Allan Domb'due south wage tax rebate bill for depression-income Philadelphians. Turns out, Philadelphia taxes its poorest residents at the highest rate in the nation—yet some other dubious distinction.

Domb's pecker would take refunded about $800 annually to the poorest working Philadelphians, a total that would jump to $1,300 a year in 2023 once the i.five per centum of the wage tax dedicated to paying off the bonds that funded the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authorization comes off the books. "We shouldn't be filling the metropolis coffers on the dorsum of people earning poverty wages…It's but not right," Domb said upon the pecker's 17-0 passage in Council.

Perchance it's time to try a unlike blazon of leadership, one that swings for the fences, one that engages Philadelphia in an invigorating common project. That'south the kind of approach Danielle Outlaw talked most in her printing conference. He was in that location, so i can only hope her new dominate was listening.

Mayor Kenney has rightly called Philadelphia's poverty rate an "embarrassment," but his deportment take been far from Marshall Plan-like. The urban center's anti-poverty part has long been a bureaucratic sinkhole and, compared to peer cities, our approach to combating the scourge of poverty nether Kenney has not only been plodding, simply too uninformed by pro-growth strategies.

So why not embrace any idea that puts some scratch back into the pockets of those who take the least? To hear the administration tell it, they've of a sudden discovered the notion of financial responsibility. The hit to the city budget of signing the property and wage taxation relief bills would have been around $twoscore million, less than ane pct of the annual budget. Sounds similar modest potatoes for a mayor who has increased spending by $1 billion per year—the largest four-yr spending spree in city history.

So if it wasn't actually the budgetary and administrative burden, what was it? I reached out to Domb to discover out. He all the same sounded stunned. "When [Mayoral Chief of Staff] Jim Engler called me on New Twelvemonth's Eve to tell me the mayor wouldn't sign information technology, I couldn't believe it," he said. "I however don't understand. You want to fight poverty? This is how. Putting greenbacks back in the pockets of 150,000 of the 382,000 people in poverty—working people. $800 a yr might not sound like much, but information technology is if you're making $25,000 a yr."

Domb cites all the support his neb garnered from experts, including The Reinvestment Fund and Benefits Data Trust, both of whom saw the stimulative effects of such a refund. "This would be money that goes right back into the local economy in neighborhoods," Domb said. "They're non putting this money into 401Ks."

I pressed Domb on why the mayor wouldn't sign his bill. "The merely answer is, I don't know," he repeated.

This is just theorize, of course, but here'southward a thought: Don't discard the ability of ego and political pettiness in Philadelphia. These weren't Jim Kenney's ideas, and that 1 of them belonged to Domb couldn't have sabbatum well. Domb'southward calls for financial sanity over the unreconciled banking company accounts and missing millions in city funds prompted expletive-laden rage from the mayor, to whom all politics appears to exist personal. (Think that the mayor discontinued his predecessor's successful Focused Deterrence policing pilots probable because his predecessor's fingerprints were all over them). Domb—saying the wage tax refund is the nearly important thing he'southward done since joining Quango—vows to reintroduce the pecker in the coming days.

Gun Violence-Funding Follies

Danielle Outlaw was intimately involved with Oakland's successful interventions in cutting its 2022 worst-in-the-nation gun violence in half, so information technology was especially ironic that, a week afterwards naming her to be Philly'southward superlative cop, the Kenney administration took an action that flies directly in the face of the lessons of Oakland. Instead of following the bold footprints of that city, Kenney has doubled down on the failed status-quo policies that take given u.s. our nightly narrative of chalk outlines and body bags.

On the surface, it may appear that there's nothing wrong with announcing, as Kenney did earlier this week, the city'southward 2nd circular of funding for community-based organizations designed to "foreclose and reduce gun violence." More than 50 groups that provide mentoring and career skill-edifice, organize sports leagues and connect returning citizens to their communities volition receive $1 million in funding. There's merely one trouble: Such funding, well-intentioned though it is, does not reduce gun violence—at least non anywhere near the urgent timetable demanded by our current crisis.

This is simply conjecture, of course, but here's a thought: Don't discard the power of ego and political pettiness in Philadelphia. These weren't Jim Kenney's ideas, and that i of them belonged to Domb couldn't have sat well.

That was the message from David Muhammad, executive managing director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, who wowed the oversupply at our Ideas Nosotros Should Steal Festival final month. Muhammad was one of the architects of the Oakland turnaround, and many others just like it, and he reports that many cities make the aforementioned mistake: ignoring the self-evident dictum that "Your actions must exist aligned with your desired outcomes." If you want to reduce gun violence correct now, Muhammad says, "a mentoring program for center schoolers is swell—just it volition never get yous gun violence reduction in 12 months."

Instead, Muhammad outlines a bold, intentional and focused strategy—the same that Outlaw referenced in her press conference. We outlined it here. Tellingly, Theron Pride, Kenney'south senior manager of Violence Prevention Strategies and Programs, concedes that much of the city'south grassroots spending is not addressing the brusque-term demand to lower the gun violence rate that Muhammad and Outlaw herald. Instead, he says, the Kenney administration spending is aimed toward helping those doing the work on the ground feel supported and part of the conversation.

That may be admirable, but it's also a classic example of mission pitter-patter. How distressing is it that, even every bit Kenney boldly appoints Outlaw, his administration is announcing yet more of the same old, same old?

How well-nigh that street-sweeping?

First-Term Jimmy had a penchant for making bold assertions, then either not living up to them or trotting out his lieutenants to "walk them back"—a relatively new euphemistic political term of fine art. (In the not-so-old old days, statements that had to be "walked dorsum" or "cleaned up" were frequently referred to as "lies.")

Retrieve of information technology. Candidate Jimmy in 2022 was going to institute reform-minded nix-based budgeting, stop end-and-frisk, and constitute street-sweeping. None of information technology ever happened. Now comes that bold annunciation: Street-sweeping will triumphantly return. Uh…check that. Inside hours of Kenney's comments, there was Managing Managing director Brian Abernathy doing the walk-back: Turns out, Kenney's no-nonsense phone call might non apply to all neighborhoods. And the street sweeping that does get washed? Don't expect the plan to fully roll out until…2023. Wouldn't it be nice if, for one time, we got a sense of urgency coming from City Hall around problem-solving?

How distressing is it that, even as Kenney boldly appoints Outlaw, his administration is announcing yet more of the same one-time, same erstwhile?

The decision to hire Outlaw—seen widely every bit a "legacy" move—led many to wonder whether Second-Term Jimmy would govern by tackling the big stuff. After all, he's spent prodigiously, but to what return? We nonetheless pb the nation in poverty, we're nevertheless creating the incorrect kinds of jobs in order to compete with peer cities and the suburbs, we even so have an exploding murder rate and abysmal clearance rate (in six out of 10 cases, you can literally get away with murder in Philadelphia).

Possibly it'southward time to endeavor a different blazon of leadership, one that swings for the fences, one that engages Philadelphia in an invigorating mutual project. That's the kind of arroyo Danielle Outlaw talked about in her press conference. He was there, so one can just hope her new boss was listening.

Photograph by Samantha Madera / Urban center of Philadelphia

wommacksooder.blogspot.com

Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/new-jim-kenney-old-jim-kenney/

Share this post